My Arrival!

The travel day went about as smooth as one would expect a 20-hr travel day to go. We left home at 7am and drove the 1.5hrs to SMF for my first leg of the flight: SMF to LAX. It would be my first time in the infamous LAX, which I had only heard the worst about from my Southern-California-born friends and family. It was a small plane and short flight from Sacramento to Los Angeles, barely enough time to listen through the entirety of Taylor Swift’s Folklore. Upon landing in Los Angeles, I had a short layover where I shuttled to the next terminal over for my longer flight to Miami. This flight was much more spacious and, much to my excitement, it seemed the flights and airports got more “Latine” as the travel day progressed. Once arriving in the Miami airport, I was pleasantly surprised with the lack of English I was hearing throughout the terminal. Although all of the signs were in English, Bad Bunny was streaming through each store and all the workers were speaking in Spanish to me. I finally arrived at the boarding gate to Santiago where I noticed I was one of, if not the only, with a US passport rather than a Chilean. My navy blue pocketbook stood out from the sea of ruby red and I knew it was time to switch into Spanish mode.

I ended up in a middle seat in the front third of the plane, between a Chilean dad and a young Chilean woman. We briefly chatted but, as it was a red-eye, most were concerned with falling asleep after takeoff. I took advantage of the six hour flight to watch Crazy Rich Asians, the only acceptable movie to watch during long flights. Okay, I’ll be honest: I watched it twice. Maybe two and a half times. Six hours later, I finally arrived in Chile. 

After leaving the plane and arrival gate, I was quickly greeted with COVID and monkeypox informational signs everywhere, with mask mandates and testing centers in the terminal. It was strange that, after being so used to going maskless in the states, it was such tight security in Chile regarding COVID safety. After some slight hastling at immigration, I finally found my group and we enjoyed our Pentatonix-filled hour ride to Valparaiso. IFSA (Institute For Study Abroad) is the program Lewis & Clark partners with for their overseas program and our Valpo ‘22 group consisted of 10 participants, mostly from liberal arts colleges, from all over the United States. 

The car ride revealed how little I knew about Chile in general. As my abroad experiences have been to the Philippines and Ireland, I was initially thinking it’d remind me of the Philippines – I had been hearing about crazy traffic and lots of countryside. However, within the first few minutes of the ride, Chile is much more reminiscent of Ireland than of the Philippines. The roadway layout, the semi-gloomy weather, it didn’t feel all that “foreign.” In fact, the road between Santiago and Valparaiso looked very similar to a drive through central California, specifically that one stretch by Coalinga that suspiciously always has traffic in the middle of nowhere.  

Anyways, we did individual drop offs with IFSA throughout the Valparaíso suburb Viña del Mar. I had not realized Valparaíso was a region, in addition to being the name of the city. Across the various programs, all of the host placements for US citizens are in Viña del Mar. I live with a young family of three: with parents in their thirties and their daughter who is four. The PUCV campuses are spread across the region so Viña ends up being a central location for us students. Viña del Mar is slightly more spread out and has two main beaches, where Valparaiso is super tight and close together and no beaches, just the working port. Plenty of street art can be found in both places, but Valparaíso is more vibrant and buzzing. At first the city and everything, switching the 100 degree rural California life for the 50 degree city, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I upload this as I begin my second month here in Chile, and I can’t wait to fill you all in. Thank you for your patience!